


Three Jacks

by MegGiry_Khaleesi



Series: Wife From Another Life [3]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Batman: The Killing Joke (Comics), Batman: Three Jokers, Rick and Morty
Genre: Alternate Universe, Dark, Domestic Violence, Explicit Language, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:34:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27903784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MegGiry_Khaleesi/pseuds/MegGiry_Khaleesi
Summary: I was put-off by theThree Jokersretcon that Jack abused Jeannie, so this is sorta kinda my fix-it fic...except nothing really gets fixed. Once again this is grounded in my canon where Rick Sanchez is responsible for the acid the Joker falls into. A very evil, irresponsible Rick. TW for domestic violence, language, and overall Joker stuff.
Relationships: Joker (DCU)/Jeannie Kerr
Series: Wife From Another Life [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1860538
Kudos: 1





	Three Jacks

Jeannie’s hands can't stop fidgeting, her fingers tapping on the table. She stares at her ashen reflection in the two-way glass, wondering faintly if anyone cares enough to observe from behind the mirror. One hand flies to her stomach as one tiny foot kicks inside her belly.

_Easy, Junior._

She starts as the door clangs open. The officer who led her in enters accompanied by a plainclothesman dressed in a coat not unlike Columbo's, with a five o’clock shadow on his face.

Jeannie's mouth twitches. _Don't laugh. There is nothing about this situation that's funny, you donkey. Sure, he looks like a taller cousin of Peter Falk's and it's just a little too perfect, but it's not funny._

_You're losing it, Jeannie girl._

Without looking at her, he places a small black recorder on the desk. “This all right with you?”

Jeannie swallows. She tries not to think of what her parents would say, her going to the police willingly like this. León and Anita Jiménez came to Gotham as illegal immigrants from Corto Maltese who’d worked their fingers to the bone to provide for their children within the cramped quarters of Gotham’s Narrows district. They lived in fear of cops smashing down their door and destroying their hard-earned dreams, deporting them back to their country still in the thrall of revolution. Jeannie was taught from a young age that the cop on the block who was friendly to her naturalized citizen classmates might not be so friendly to her and her own.

Yet here she is. And because of Jack, _Jack._

She fights a wave of nausea and gives him a slight nod.

The plainclothesman -- Matelli, he calls himself -- hits the record button and begins.

“Jeannie Walsh testimony, November 8th, 1600 hours. What have you got for us, Mrs. Walsh?”

He stamps out his cigarette, and she swallows a surge of annoyance that he walked in with one in her current state.

She clears her throat. “I’ve...well, like I told you over the phone, I’ve got some suspicions about the Ace Chemical Processing Plant, where my husband used to work.”

“Your husband’s name is John Walsh?”

“Yes. Jack. Everybody calls him Jack.”

“And why do you think something’s going on there?”

She obviously hasn’t found the right words yet. She fiddles with the strands of hair falling over her face and re-secures them with her barrette. “Because...because of a couple things.”

“Yes?”

“Well -” she coughs and her hand flies to her chest. She laughs awkwardly about choking on her own spit, and asks for some water. Matelli, quickly surmising how on-edge the lady is, nods at his companion. The cop -- Ryan, Jeannie notices his badge says -- fills a paper cup from the water cooler and hands it to her. She thanks him and continues.

“I first noticed when my husband started acting...strangely." She takes an unsteady sip. “He’s been having these sort of episodes.”

Matelli raises an eyebrow. “Yeah? Episodes?”

She squirms in her seat. “He’s...he’s been so angry lately. So angry.” Her hands start shaking, and she clasps them tightly together over her round stomach.

“Angry how?”

She sighs. “Well, at first I just figured it was because our finances are so tight right now. As you know, he left Ace Chemicals.”

“And why is that?”

“At the time I thought it was just because he was sick of management there. His former boss, Rick Sanchez, is apparently a real genius but built along the lines of Mengele. They never got along. Plus, Jack’s always wanted to do comedy, but his old man pushed him into the sciences growing up. So now” --

“Comedy, huh? Your husband a funny guy?”

Jeannie Walsh is no great beauty, but here her squinting blue eyes begin to shine, and she smiles so widely with such remembered delight, that everyone watching could suddenly see in her what first took Jack Walsh’s breath away. “Oh, god, yes. He’s hysterical. The funniest guy I ever met.”

“So he’s doing well at stand-up?”

Those blue eyes cloud over. “Well….”

“Yes?”

She sighs and closes her eyes. _Time to be the worst wife in the world and start twisting in the knife._ She hates this.

“He’s not. And I just don’t get it! Before he quit Ace, we’d go to open mic night and he’d get the biggest laughs you ever heard. Seriously. That’s why I didn’t hit him upside the head when he told me he quit to try it out professionally.”

“But then?”

“Then he just seemed to lose his confidence. Of course, it didn’t help that that was early on in my pregnancy and the doctor put me on bed rest. See, I’d fainted at work” --

“You worked at…” Matelli flips through his notes. “...the Monarch --”

“--Playing Card Company nextdoor to the plant, yes. I did some minor machine operation, some translation of their instructions to Spanish. That’s how Jack and I met, walking to work on opposite sides of the river outside. Anyway,” a shaky breath. “Anyway, that lost me my job, since Monarch’s maternity leave package was a joke and didn’t cover bed rest. So there was that extra pressure on Jack, making him the sole breadwinner in the household. That doesn’t really help someone be funny on cue. And also...well, thanks to the bedrest, I couldn’t go with him to his shows or auditions anymore.”

“Ah, you were his muse, huh?”

This earns a sad laugh. “I think it was just nice for him to have a fan in the audience no matter what.”

“I assume you’re off of bedrest now.”

“Yep, for about a month now. I’m doing okay. But the doc still wants me to take it easy, and hauling myself downtown to rowdy nightclubs --” She shakes her head.

Matelli turns his neck to the right, cracking a muscle there. “All right, so he’s flopping at auditions, not making much dough. You have to leave your nice apartment and move to a shithole in the Narrows. He’s got a pregnant wife to support. To me, that would explain the anger.”

“No, you’re right, and that’s what I thought it was at first.”

“But then?”

“Then...then it got worse. And worse.” She stares dully at her wedding ring.

In a soft voice, Matelli asks, “Has he gotten physical?”

Her eyes shoot up to his then away. “No. Not yet. But…” Another shaky sip of water. “He’s gotten close.”

A dull moment of silence.

Matelli thinks she’s so small outside that bulging belly that it wouldn’t take much of that kind of thing to do her in. 

“What makes you think this is all connected to Ace Chemicals? This all started after he left, right?”

She shakes her head, eyes glassy. “No, not exactly. I guess I haven’t told it quite right. My own head is now so messed up I don’t know what I’m saying half the time.” She exhales a humorless laugh, smile pained. “I just didn’t really notice it too much at the beginning, wrapped up as I was in my excitement over Junior here.” A couple pats of her belly.

“Okay, so what about Ace?”

The light suddenly seems too bright in the sterile room, and Jeannie pushes through her sudden headache. “See, along with the outbursts there was this weird… _stuff_ Jack started babbling. Sometimes it was like he didn’t recognize me, or thought I was someone else, that… _he_ was someone else.”

Her deep eyes are haunted. “You have no idea how truly awful it is to suddenly not recognize the love of your life. It’s like he was a whole host of other Jacks, and he was living in their different worlds.”

“What kind of worlds?”

Jeannie says nothing for a long moment, face pale and unsure. At last she reaches into the large canvas bag she brought with her and takes out a tattered book.

She drops it on the table. “These kinds of worlds.” 

Another Vulcan-like raise of Matelli’s eyebrow and he opens the first page. “This is a...journal of some kind?”

Jeannie doesn’t take her eyes off her folded hands. “I surprised Jack one night at about three o’clock in the morning. I woke up to hear him scribbling away at this. He tried to hide it from me when I came out to the kitchen, but I saw it under his folded arms. Later the next day when he went out to an audition I rummaged through his things and found it at the bottom of the sock drawer.” She massages her temples, the nagging headache only growing worse. “This is why I suspect Ace is behind it all.”

Matelli sticks his tongue into his cheek as he flips through.

The first entry starts almost exactly seven months before. The handwriting is cramped and tight, as if written in a hurry.

  


_I have to grasp this moment while my lucidity lasts. It doesn’t take long these days._

_Everything started in the office that day, about two weeks ago. I was drinking coffee, looking over the data from the latest acid levels, when suddenly I was no longer there. I was hunched over a machine gun, putting the different parts together. I’ve never handled a gun in my life! But it_ was _me. I was in some sort of dark room hardly bigger than a closet, with only one light bulb hanging from the ceiling. There was a bunch of shouting and music outside. Some kind of nightclub? I was full of -- well, I wasn’t full of anything, really. I’ve been an anxious guy as far back as I remember; mostly shy and reticent, which is why I developed that adorable sense of humor of mine._

_But_ this _version of me? There was nothing. Just an empty sort of black pit where all my emotions used to live. At the same time, I felt more in control than I ever have at any other point in my life._

_I eventually returned to myself, to the plant, to the data sheets. I was shaken, but I convinced myself I’d fallen asleep and had a weird, vivid dream. No big deal._

_But it kept happening._

_That very night I took the bus home, as usual. I looked down, but instead of my suit I was dressed like a freakin’ clown. Big floppy shoes, a wig, a round red nose, the works. With that get-up you think I’d be in a jolly kinda mood, but I was so _angry._ I remembered...I remembered performing at some kid’s birthday party, and the mom threw me out when I used the balloon animals to -- God, I don’t even want to think of it. But I wasn’t embarrassed, I was full of this rage, and I pictured strangling that _ BITCH MOM AND DANGLING HER VOCAL CHORDS IN FRONT OF HER SNOT-NOSED BRAT, MAYBE PLAY HIM A LITTLE TUNE ON MA’S STRINGS 

….  
…

_Jeannie just came in, all in a panic. I said that part out loud. No, I screamed it. Scared the shit out of her. I’ve been doing that a lot lately, scaring her. Oh god, please help me. Help us._

  
Matelli turns the page. He’s reading aloud, which makes Jeannie increasingly uncomfortable.

The next date is two weeks after the first entry. The handwriting is getting just slightly less legible, the words bigger and sprawling crookedly down the page.

  


_As far as I can tell, there are three of us. I mean, obviously, there are more than three. There are an unknown number of us. But three keep circling back, three that are sort of the umbrellas over all of us. Categories._

_The Three Cs: Criminal, Clown, and Comedian. I didn’t talk about the Comedian last time, did I? Just the Criminal and Clown. I think it’s because it took me so long to realize the Comedian _wasn’t_ me -- I mean, once again, it _was_ me, they’re all me, all Jack (though the Criminal seems to go by the last name Napier), but this one was living my current life, working at Ace Chemical. He was wearing a wedding ring and all._

_And he_ did _come home to Jeannie. And it_ was _my Jeannie. But then I blinked and it was still her, but her hair was darker and her eyes hazel. Another blink and her hair was a dark brown mane of curls, almost black. The warm blue eyes were warm brown._

__

__

_Another time her hair was blonde but her eyes were brown, her hair was black and her eyes were blue; then she was blonde and blue-eyed again but her bath gown was pink instead of purple._

_But I knew all along it was Jeannie, because of her smile._

_I look in the mirror and see that it's also me, but my reddish-brown hair is black and my green eyes are so dark, as black as my hair._

____

_There must be hundreds, thousands of Comedians and Jeannies of different colorings and hair textures and so on. I don’t think her smile ever changes, though._

_God, if anything happens to her because I’m losing my mind_

_Why did I just laugh? I almost woke her up._

_I was talking about the Comedian. He’s basically me, right? But get this: he’s left Ace. He had the balls to leave and do comedy._ Comedy!

_And guess what? He’s crushing it. At least, the one I see most of the time, the one with the Jeannie that looks the most like mine, so that must mean this is the one I’m closest to._

_Okay, but what’s causing all this?? Am I losing my mind?? I mean yes, duh, but what came first, the visions or the crazy? Are the visions driving me crazy, or am I seeing these different lives_ because _I’ve suddenly gone nutso?_

_Chicken or the egg?_

_It sounds like there’s a punchline in there, somewhere._

  


Matelli absently reaches for his coat pocket for another cigarette, then remembers who’s across from him. He drops his hand and instead turns the page.

The next entry is dated later that night. Jack takes up like he never left off.

  


_No. No, the more I think about it, I’m not going crazy. It’s Sanchez. It has to be that motherfucking Sanchez, that twisted old cunt of a madman._

_Remember, Jack? Remember that journal he kept, not unlike this one? I only read a couple sentences and looked over some sketches before I heard him walking down the hall. Those few sentences and those sketches were enough to baffle the hell out of me and stick in my mind._

_Some shit about isolating an “interdimensional compound”, or however he put it...a wonky sketch of some kind of “portal gun”? Then some actually pretty legit-looking formulas to transmute a compound into droplets, then even a gas, I think?_

_I remember thinking maybe they were notes for some stupid sci-fi novel the prick was writing, which made a pretty hilarious mental image. I remember I couldn’t wait to tell Jeannie all about it._

_But it was later that day, after Rick had been in the lab for hours, that I became the Criminal for the first time. And so I never got around to telling her. Let’s just say I was a little distracted after that._

_So what is it, then? Droplets in my coffee, maybe? Or an odorless gas, leaking out of the vent and into my office?_

_Oh, get this! The Sanchez in the Comedian’s universe? An absolute mensch. Nicest guy you ever met. Looked just a little older than my Sanchez, and he had almost a fatherly manner to him. More clean-cut, too. He actually_ encouraged _the comedian to quit, to go after his dreams._

_I never would have thought ol’ Mengele possible of that._

_Y’know? Things are going pretty good for the Comedian, I notice. Maybe whatever the hell Sanchez has done to me has one good side effect: I’m seeing how my life would play out if I started making the right calls for a change. The Criminal and the Clown are both examples of how my life would have gone were my upbringing shittier, but the Comedian --_

_Side bar: Dad got a head injury overseas in the main timelines for both the Clown and the Criminal. This messed with his brain chemistry and turned him into a monster, and he abused the little so-and-sos. Can't help but figure that contributes to their...certain behaviors. Not that I particularly buy Nurture over Nature here; no version of me is an absolute angel. I've always had to bite back my temper. There's a darkness to my personality I'm able to keep at bay, as I suspect is the same for most folks._

_A shove in the wrong direction in my formative years clearly sets me down a different path._

_The Comedian, though? The Comedian is who I could be as I am, in this timeline._

__

__

_The criminal has my analytical mindset, but without any sort of discipline to keep him from turning into a controlling, sadistic career criminal. The clown has some of my humor, sure, but more juvenile; his very emotions are juvenile, and he’s just unbridled chaos. No soul there, just rage and unceasing laughter._

_But the Comedian? He’s a happy man, out there living his best life. He’s going after the career I always wanted had Joseph Walsh allowed his son to follow his dreams and hadn’t made him take a job in the sciences._

_Side bar, part 2: every Comedian I’ve met so far has also apparently cut ties with Ma and Pa Walsh. The folks were good to me growing up, but there’s only so much ultra-right wing, outright racist bullshit a guy can take. The way they looked at Jeannie when they learned her last name was Jiménez_

_CUT THEIR FACES OPEN CARVE IN THE SMILES THEY SHOULD HAVE GIVEN THEIR DAUGHTER-IN LAW THE SWEETEST MOST GENUINE GIRL THEY OR ANYONE WILL EVER MEET AND THEY SHAT ON HER SHAT ON YOU THERE’S STILL TIME GET THEM GET THEM_

…..

….

_My name is Jack Walsh. My name is Jack Walsh._

_I’m okay._

_The Comedian. I will follow the path of the Comedian. The Comedian will get famous, make money, give Jeannie and Junior everything they’ll ever want or need. This is it._

_Sanchez, the bastard, he did it, he proved himself right. He split open a window in my mind to other dimensions. I now see my alternate lives play out before me on a spinning inner projector screen, changing dimensions like flipping through channels on TV._

_He’s used me as a guinea pig. He must have seen me take a peek at that journal, and decided to kill two birds with one stone: test out his theories on me and make it look like I was going crazy so no one would believe me. And hey, why not also punish me for spying?_

_Well, joke’s on you, pal. You can keep your secret; I’m_ glad _you did this to me. I see now what I should have done all along._

_I’ve got talent, I know I have. Jeannie’s right, I have been killing at the open mic. Screw it. I’m doing it. I’m doing it, I’m doing it._

  


Two days later, he picks up his pen again, the words even less legible than before.

  


_Well, today’s a momentous day. I threw my resignation down on Sanchez’s desk and enjoyed the momentary look of bafflement on his smug face. He looked like he was going to have an apoplectic fit once he skimmed it._

_“You’re doing_ what?”

_“You heard me, I quit. I’ve had enough of this place. I’ve had enough of you and your horseshit.”_

_I laughed in his face. He glared daggers at me._

“ _Gonna miss your guinea pig, huh?”_

_He was up on his feet in an instant, and sneeringly told me I’d fall flat on my ass, I’d be out of house and home within a month, yadda yadda yadda. His spittle hit my face._

_I was still laughing. I couldn’t stop. It pounded in my brain and was gurgling up from my chest. All at once I wasn’t standing in front of Sanchez anymore. I was in the Clown’s dump of an apartment, and I was banging my head against the mirror, and there was blood on the glass. Laughing, laughing, laughing._

_Then I’m the Criminal holding down by the arm some squealing barkeep on Valestra’s payroll. Very cool, very detached, I thought it would be funny to grab this corkscrew next to the champagne and VERY SLOWLY BRING IT TO HIS EYE_

_I LOVE TO DRAW THIS OUT JUST A LITTLE MAKE IT SLOW MOTION FOR THE BASTARD, LET HIM WATCH AS I BRING THE SCREW IN CLOSER AND CLOSER TO HIS STARING BULGING EYE_

_I heard I heard I heard_

_I heard Sanchez say Dammit Walsh stop Walsh you son of a bitch_

_Something heavy hit me in the side of the head and the world went black._

_I woke up on the floor, surrounded by security and a medic. One of them was speaking into his radio. Sanchez was gesticulating wildly at me, and that’s when I noticed he was talking to one of Ace’s higher-ups, that guy Brennan with the bald spot and the birthmark like Gorbachev. Apparently I tried to stab Rick in the eye with an expansion screw key. He’d managed to grab his desk clock and swing, knocking me out._

_I was escorted out of the plant. Sanchez says he won’t press charges as long as I stay away from him and never come back._

_Fine by me._

_I’m going to get better now. I am. I made the first right step. He can’t slip drops into my coffee anymore, or leak gas through the vent in my office. The visions are going to go away. They are._

_And I’m going to be a famous comedian and take care of my family, just like I always dreamed of but never thought I could actually_ do. 

_Why, though, does my arm itch so much? There are red lines there, almost like track marks. Some kind of allergic reaction to the compound? Hopefully they’ll go away on their own since I’m no longer exposed. Gotta keep an eye on that, though, just to be sure._

_I better go check on Jeannie. She’s not been feeling so great, poor kid. Morning sickness has turned into all-day sickness. I’m getting a bit worried._

_But she still hooted and hollered when I told her I walked out. She’s always hated that place, always wanted better for me. “Atta boy,” she cheered, squeezing me. I didn’t tell her about my attack on Sanchez and getting knocked out, of course. It’s not a lie, really, just not the whole story. She doesn’t need to know all that._

_There was some minor congratulatory hanky-panky before she started feeling poorly. I wonder how she’s doing on B6, I should go to the store and stock up on some more._

  


The next entry is the most difficult to make out yet. It's as if he’s stabbed the pen into the pages, like he's trying to engrave the thin paper like a tombstone.

  


_He did something to me after knocking me out, before he called security. Oh, that rat-bastard little weasel._

_They_ were _track marks. He must have injected me with a serum of his fucking compound. It’s in my damn bloodstream. I know it, I know it._

_Why? Why would he do this to me? Just out of petty revenge? No. Knowing Mengele, he knew he was about to lose me as a lab rat, so decided to drive me to absolute madness. So even if I do ever tell what I suspect, no one will believe such an obvious madman like I now am. A madman shifting mentally in and out of timelines, always at random, never at any kind of predictable interval --_

_Just now I blinked, and I was picking a fight with a homeless guy. I was dancing around drunk in white face paint, my clown wig falling off of me as I kicked the poor bastard over and over in the stomach. I blinked and came back. Five minutes later, the Criminal is straightening his tie as some bleach blonde moll lounges in the background of some hotel suite. Another blink and I’m here, but instead of a journal, I’m reading the paper looking for entertainer ads. Jeannie’s stirring some octopus on the stove and her curly black hair is up in a messy bun._

_But I’m here now, now, so I gotta stop wasting time and get to the point._

_The episodes have gotten only worse. I’m seeing more and more of the Comedian, which at first made me think I was getting better. I am basically the Comedian now, so it makes sense that I’d see him more often. Up until recently I'd been doing pretty well at shows, got me two gigs in a row at Gotham Comedy Club._

_Then I got a call from Monarch while I was at an audition. Jeannie fainted at work._

_First the screaming fury of the Clown tore through me, then the calm collected Criminal headed straight away to the hospital. All the Comedians had their hearts in their throats._

_My poor girl was lying there so pale and sickly, and god I never want to see her in a hospital bed ever again aside from when she has the baby. Her hand was so tight on her belly, the whole time. She still managed a brave smile when I came in, holding my hand and joking that not only is she going to grow as big as an elephant, but she's starting to faint like one that’s seen a mouse._

_She’s anemic. The doctor wants at least a month of bedrest, and then see from there._

_Once Monarch heard_

_I hate that place I wanna burn it to the ground_

_Jeannie sobbed and sobbed as I shifted in and out of the timeline, always in rage, but sometimes in that alley waiting for Valestra’s rival to show up and other times making a scene outside the recruitment office of that traveling circus that won’t give me a fucking chance_

_She blames herself. “If I wasn’t such a weakling we wouldn’t be in this mess.”_

_Oh baby._

  


There is no date on the next entry.

_I blacked out for three days. I don’t remember anything of what happened, but I came to to Jeannie pleading with me, sounding more scared than I’ve ever heard anyone. She was cringing in the corner by the stove, asking if I was going to hit her._

_HIT HER._

_I’ve got to keep it together. Every version of me is telling me this._

_I’ve seen so many timelines, so many different lives. All of them are better with Her in them. All of them are worth living, as long as She’s there._

_Without Her --_

_Yet even with Her, everything’s fallen apart here. We moved to the Narrows about a week ago, and I_ cannot let us stay here. _The baby can’t be born into a place like this. It’s like living in hell. Jeannie puts on a brave front -- she grew up close to this neighborhood-- and tells me it’s not that bad, I’m exaggerating, I’m looking at it through Entitled White Boy glasses._

_It was a joke, of course it was a joke. But the Criminal -- the Criminal saw the moll and told her to shut her damn mouth or he’d shut it for her._

_But it was Jeannie who reacted, suddenly spasming like she’d had an electric jolt. Her eyes told me she couldn’t quite believe what she’d heard._

_And I crawled on my hands and knees to her, choking on my tears, begging for her forgiveness._

_So many of the Comedians were doing the same for different reasons: groveling and apologizing not for scaring her, but for failing her. Some punchline: almost none of them so far have had their predicted lucky break. Without Jeannie in the audience -- and so many Jeannies get sick, my poor darling -- without Jeannie getting the laughter started in the crowd, and with everything weighing down on our shoulders, we choke onstage._

_No feeling on Earth is more sickening than when you blow a punchline in front of an audience -- or worse, one bored nightclub owner (the one the Criminal threatened with the corkscrew?) sitting unamused in the seats during an audition. An audition that sinks slowly and irretrievably into the mud._

_I’ve felt that sweat, that sticky sensation of public humiliation and failure so many times now, as so many jokes fall apart in my inadequate telling, in so many different lifetimes._

_If nothing else, it’s this constant bombardment of interdimensional failures that will well and truly leave me stark raving mad._

  


There is no date on the next entry. The handwriting is frankly childlike, as if a kindergartner were making a halfhearted attempt to play grown up.

  


_Wanna hear a joke?_

_I’m sitting in front of an empty page of some kind of journal and I don’t know why I am. I don’t know who I am or where I am._

_Honk, honk!_

_I feel like I’m someone with a lot of someones in me. They’re kind of riding on a merry-go-round in me brain._

_The merry-go-round broke down, as they say._

_I’m trying to remember one simple thing, but by golly_

_Wait_

_It’s coming to me._

 _I’m wearing a wedding ring._

_Jeannie_

_Warm Jeannie, Jeannie laughs and her eyes squint and I know everything is going to be okay because Jeannie_

_Jeannie is real. I hear her. She just turned over in bed._

_She’s_

_She’s crying, I can hear her._

_Does she_

_Does she want to leave_

SHE CAN’T LEAVE. WE WON’T LET HER. 

_Jeannie never leaves her Jack, I’ve never seen it, it it doesn’t happen it doesnt_

  


_She can’t leave us_

  


There is nothing after this but scrawling spirals and holes like he’d stabbed and stabbed the pages. 

Matelli exhales, feeling a little sick. 

He could scarcely read that last line. The scrawl is so thick and dark and takes up half the page. 

He glances up at Jeannie. She certainly tugs at the heartstrings, a perfect image of the wan, bravely struggling little damsel-in-distress. Those hands never seem to leave her belly. 

He coughs, shifts in his seat. “Well, it certainly sounds like you two are going through the ringer.” 

Her absent expression doesn’t change, but there is a tear running down her cheek. 

This is difficult. “But it sounds like your husband is going through some sorta psychotic break; I mean, it’s pretty unreal this stuff he says about Ace and that compound or whatever it is. Don’t ya think,” another uncomfortable shift. “Don’t ya think” -- 

“He’s just plain crazy?” She gives him a bitter smile. “I mean, yes, of course that’s occurred to me. But,” her eyes are in so much pain. “But I know Jack almost better than I know myself. He -- something’s _happened to him._ ” A million different emotions flit through her face as she tries to find the words. “Something _outside of him_ is causing all this. And this...weird interdimensional compound crap is all I can think of!” 

Her face settles on a pleading look, hollowed eyes boring into Matelli’s. “What else is there?”

  


Gordon watches from behind the two-way glass and listens to Matelli calmly and rationally explain that the Ace explanation is actually the most farfetched one of all. Gordon can’t help but agree. In fact, he doesn’t really know why they’re all here for this. Domestic violence is no joke, but there are other departments for that. 

He glances behind him. 

Batman is standing as still as always, watching, giving nothing away. 

Gordon still isn’t one hundred percent sure about this ghoulish figure calling himself the Dark Knight; is he crazy, or a true agent of justice like he claims? 

So far his actions certainly seem to speak to the latter. In the six months he’s been active, he’s cracked down on two different mafia operations that Jim’s worked years on trying to break up. He’s saved three women from sexual assault, finally apprehending a serial rapist that haunted Gotham’s streets on and off for fifteen years. 

When Gordon mentions during one of their infrequent meetings on the little half-balcony outside his office that some poor kooky lady called with some conspiracy theory about her husband’s erratic behavior and the Ace Chemical Processing Plant, Batman insists on the two of them observing the interview. 

So here they are. 

Gordon hadn’t realized she was pregnant. That gives him a pang. She holds onto her belly like a life raft. She’s clearly in absolute turmoil, the rings dark around her eyes, but Gordon doesn’t see a crackpot sitting there. She's miserable, but sane. 

Maybe -- 

Gordon turns to Batman again. “Well? What do you think?” 

He remains silent for several seconds, then, “You should get in touch with the Wayne Foundation. They can put some money aside for her, get her safely out of state if need be.” 

“And? What about Ace Chemical?” 

Gordon hates that damn mask and cowl. He can’t read the vigilante at all. 

“I’ll look into it.” He disappears into the shadows of the room and is gone before Gordon can reply. 

Gordon looks back at Jeannie Walsh. She is sitting very patiently, taking in what Matelli is saying: Sure they’ll look into Ace if it makes her feel better, but more importantly she needs an action plan in case her husband gets more violent, etc. Her resigned misery is written all over her face. 

Matelli hands her a card with his number. Her tells her to call right away if things get worse.

  


Things get worse. 

She wakes up a few mornings later and he’s doing handstands on the kitchen floor, laughing like Bozo the Clown. She laughs too. She hopes it’s Jack, her Jack, just horsing around. Like he used to. But at the sound of her laughter his upside down eyes go ice cold. He’s on his feet and backs her up to the wall, hand around her neck like a vice. 

“You little slut, you don’t laugh at me, you hear? You leave that shit for old man Grissom, _never_ with me.” The voice is gravelly and low-pitched, which she recognizes now as the Criminal’s. _Oh god, he must think I'm the Criminal's girlfriend he wrote about._

He’s squeezing her throat now. “Jack --” A sob and a plea. 

His other hand’s in her hair, pulling -- 

“ _Jack --_ ” 

_“NO.”_

He throws her away from him and her back hits the wall hard, and the baby kicks. 

He’s cowering on the floor, his arms thrown across his face, growling at himself. 

“No. No. It’s Jeannie. It’s Jeannie.” A high cackle and a sob. 

Some rage she’s been trying so hard to stamp down erupts now. “Goddammit, Jack! I can’t take this anymore! You need help!” 

He says nothing, just rocks himself back and forth crouched on the floor. 

He had told her before, in one of his rare stable moments, that there's no use trying to get help. No one would believe him. They'd just lock him away in an institution somewhere, leaving her and the baby alone --

_Well, I'm ready to take that risk._

She sucks in the bravest breath of her life, and before she can think better of it, she says, “If you don’t get help, I am going to leave. I’ll have to.” 

Her brave breath catches in her throat when she sees the wild animal that jerks its head up to face her. 

She screams as he lunges for her, tackling her, throwing her down on their bed. 

She cries and cringes, expecting the worst. She wraps protective arms around her belly. 

All at once his body is covering hers. He grasps her in his arms, rocking her to him. Spooning her. 

She can barely breathe in this tight grasp. 

He shrieks over and over into her hair, “You’re not leaving, you’re not leaving, Honey don’t leave Baby. You’re not. _Leaving_.” This a strangled roar, shattering what’s left of her reserve of strength. 

She collapses into his suffocating embrace, staring numbly at the wall as he cries and laughs himself into a foggy oblivion, tears dampening her hair. 

The next day, she calls the number Matelli gave her and is close to a mental break herself when she meets with them. She goes through the motions dumbly. They say something about money the boys have gotten together, a new place for her and the baby -- 

“What about,” she asks through her tears. “What about Jack?” 

“Don’t worry about it, he’ll never know where you’ve gone.” 

“But -- is anyone looking into Ace Chemicals? You said you would. Interview Rick Sanchez. Jack needs treatment! We need to understand fully what’s happening to him --” 

Matelli is conciliatory, but still firm. “Bruce Wayne is organizing a commission to look into it.” 

“Really?” 

“Yes, ma’am.” 

“Good.” She clutches his wrist. “When...when he’s finally better…” her eyes are so wide. “You’ll bring him back to me?” That hand clutching Matelli’s is shaking. 

Matelli gives her a curt nod, and there’s nothing left for her to do. There’s something more important than her, than Jack, even. 

Her hand on her belly. 

  


Surely there’s a timeline where Batman tracks down Sanchez before he finishes the portal gun and leaps into another timeline. Batman gets the truth out of him, obtains the formula, and threatens Sanchez into helping him reverse the effects. Jack is cured and is reunited with his wife. They raise their child together, in relative harmony. 

But in so many other timelines Batman is delayed by other business; petty crimes on the street, mostly. Sanchez in the meantime realizes the higher-ups are on to him, have been hovering outside his office, looking at him with odd speculative gleams in their beady eyes. Sanchez takes the plunge, tries out his portal gun, and disappears the very night Batman arrives. The very night Batman gets distracted from his mission as Red Hood and his gang arrive. 

  


After nearly strangling Jeannie, Jack meets with his two new associates more determined than ever to do right by her. He can't keep failing her like this. 

He is now with the Comedians, mostly. And it’s a funny turn of events: the Comedian is trying to turn into a Criminal. 

For Her. For Junior. 

He meets with the same two guys the other Comedians meet with, and Jack thinks it’s okay because the Criminal has worked with these two before, and they know how to get the job done. 

But he’s never been their stooge before. 

He’s sitting with them in that bar, babbling on about the security at the plant and how he’s scared the red hood will make it hard to breathe, and he latches on to their reassurances, and it takes all his will power to stay in this universe, and to know when it’s not his, because his and the Comedian’s are so similar now -- 

“Excuse me, sir?” 

He blinks, jolting back to what he _thinks_ is his timeline. A plainclothesman and a cop are standing right there, staring down at him, and for a moment they’re still there but somehow he knows he’s another Comedian, then another, and another, all looking up at those two men. 

He hates the sight of them. 

“We’re police officers. Could we speak to you outside for a moment?” 

Jack feels like a truck just mowed down his grave. All the Comedians are on high alert. 

“Me? B-but...why? I haven’t...I mean, uh…” 

The tall one in the trench coat, his eyes are like two black holes. “It’ll only take a moment, sir.” 

They all walk out together, and Jack feels in perfect sync with so many of the Comedians, and they all hear it, they hear 

“Sir I’m sorry but your wife had an accident this morning apparently testing a baby bottle heater therewasanelectricalshortanduh…. 

"YourwifediedsirI’m sorry” 

Your wife 

Jeannie 

Honey 

  


Jack would never know that Matelli told the funniest joke of all; funny because in so many timelines what he says is true. In so many timelines that discount baby bottle heater Jeannie orders does short out on her, killing her and Junior almost instantly. Jack knows this because in all these timelines, the officers instruct him to identify her at the hospital, after getting another drink. 

And he does, and he sees her, and she’s dead with burns on her hands and arms, but her face looks like she’s asleep maybe she’s just asleep, no, no, don’t cover her up, don't cover Jeannie up like she’s just some random corpse, she’s not, Junior’s in there 

This time he is not so instructed, only recommended to go get another drink. He’s assured the hospital will take care of all the arrangements and he doesn’t have to see her in that condition.

  


Five years later Rick decides it’s probably safe to go back. 

He’s seen a lot in that time, and none of it impressed him that much. 

He hadn’t given three shits about all of those versions of him with a kid, and her kids, and blah blah blah. What he’d wanted to see was what advancements the other versions of himself had invented and perfected. 

Luckily there were a few contraptions here or there he was able to sneak away the blueprints for and smuggle back with him. It was about time his hard work earned him some kind of profit in his original universe. 

His portal leads him back to the chemical plant, back to where he first left. The place is black as a tomb, but it’s only about 3:30 in the afternoon. 

Right away he just knows: the place is abandoned. Probably condemned, like it should have been decades ago. He’s only a few feet from the vats and takes a peek over the railing. 

Huh. The excess mixture of his compound he’d dumped in there before ditching is still swirling around, that tell-tale bright green. 

Lazy assholes had left his masterpiece to simmer neglected there. 

He shrugs. _Comme ci, comme ca._

__

__

He looks around for any of his old equipment, making his way back to his old office. He fixes the setting on his portal gun to blast a laser beam into the lock, melting it until he can kick the door open. He coughs through the dust, wincing at the dilapidated state of his former domain. 

He rummages through his desk, scattering the yellowed papers there. He’s gotta reconfigure a few buttons on the portal gun, then he can look around the place a bit more -- 

_“Well, hello.”_

He whips around. 

A silhouette of a man Rick can't quite make out in the darkness is standing in the doorway. He's a tall, thin man wearing a trench coat and carrying a walking stick. He holds aloft a wide, somewhat old-fashioned fedora in greeting. 

For the first time in a long, long time, an inexplicable terror seizes the older man. It's gone before he can analyze it and irritation takes over. 

“The hell are you?” 

“Oh, just a lad passing through. Taking a little evening jaunt down my different memory lanes, as it were. I do so when I’m taken by one of my rare introspective moods.” That voice is oddly familiar, but masked in a theatrical, high-pitched tone. The shadowed figure bows. “It’s so wonderful to see you again, Monsieur Sanchez.” 

Yes, something about that voice, that figure.... “Okay, I give up. Do I know you?” 

Something is very off about that high, frightening laugh. The figure steps a little more into the light. 

That sharp long nose, the lantern jaw -- 

It hits Rick in that instant. 

_“Walsh?”_

“No, I don’t like that name. In fact, I don’t much like yours, either. You can call me the Comedian.” 

“...'Kay.” God, he needs a drink. He fishes his flask out of his lab coat and takes a swig. He still can’t make out any of Walsh’s features. Asshole's still snickering away like a drunk Krusty the Klown. 

Guy's finally gone loopy after years of his serum running through his veins. Oh well, what can ya do? No way the fruitcake could suspect Rick. He surely hadn’t seen enough of his journal to figure it all out yet. 

Right? 

_Gonna miss your guinea pig, huh?_

He shakes away the memory and refocuses on the task at hand. 

_Just gotta get past the crazy man._

He sees out of the corner of his eye his old tool kit. The hinges look rusted shut. He can take care of that later. 

“Well, uh, nice catching up, Walsh-Comedian-Whatever. Gotta go.” 

He’s relieved in spite of himself when the shadow graciously steps aside, letting him pass through with his portal gun and tool kit in tow.

He makes it to the catwalk over the vats before the voice and figure loom behind him again, having followed him silently. “Now, as for _you!”_

Rick turns around, more annoyed than frightened. That tall figure is still standing mostly obscured in shadow, but the wrist peeking out of the glove holding that walking stick -- it’s so _white_ \-- 

This obnoxiously whimsical version of Walsh’s voice continues. “After my little dip in your brew down there I was even more lost, more unhinged than before. I saw more and more of us, and most of the Comedians never sampled your brew before, so the poor saps had no idea what they were seeing! Same with the Criminal, same with the Clown! They simply believed they lost their marbles! Ha! I mean, imagine all those visions of mine -- all those visions accumulated over months from a drop here in my coffee and a whiff there through the vent, thanks to you, boss -- Imagine getting those all at once, in one peak traumatic moment, then grasping for your reflection, and you see my handsome mug staring back at you! Hilarious, right? It was easier for them to shut it all off entirely and stop trying to remember. That's the only surefire way to stop the visions, we've found. Give in and let Mr. J take over. However, _I_ was lucky. Thanks to my more gradual exposure beforehand, I'm sadly the sanest guy of the bunch!” His voice lowers, and there is a gravelly undertone there that shouts a warning to the frozen Rick. “Through sheer determination I was still able to latch onto the big three. They were my landline -- ha, I almost said laughline! You see, I always knew I was the Comedian. Always. I followed his path ex _act_ ly. 

“But I found out something else about those three that night. There was one factor uniting them all!” 

His voice caresses the next two words like a lover’s name, or the title of a cherished poem. _“The Batman.”_

“...Eh?” 

Another off-putting giggle. “Yes! Y’see, the Clown tires of getting kicked out of hospitals and children’s parties and decides to give crime a try. Thus, he ends up in the Red Hood instead of the Comedian, and meets Batsy on the catwalk. The Criminal, of course, leads the group in his timeline, but thanks to a last minute betrayal, the Bat is there, always there. The one commonality between all three of us.” 

“Look, pal, I’m sure this makes a lot of sense to you, but I gotta motor”-- 

That long gloved hand waves off his objections. “Yes, yes, I’m getting to you. But you mustn’t interrupt me, my good man. It’s a rare thing indeed for me to be so lucid about the thorny field that is the past, so you mustn’t throw me off my groove. You see, I still have some of the analytical Criminal swirling around in me at the end of the day. And he wants three representatives here, in this timeline, to play out our little story. To make our mark, all three of us, in at least this timeline if nowhere else! All must play with Batman, and they are so insistent about it I can’t deny them their chance in the sun. I just needed some vessels.” 

He inches forward just a bit, and Rick sees that the red of his lips against the white face is too stark, unnaturally stark -- 

“So it is in _credibly_ serendipitous that you are here. Kismet, as it were! You see, I’ve just selected my Clown. Poor Artie really did resemble Clown me. I spotted him outside the subway, and he looked so dejected in his white face paint, his wig limp in his hand. Got in a fight with his agent, apparently. So full of spite. It was delicious. I nabbed him right up and had him take a plunge as well. As he came to, I whispered all about Batman, Batman, Batman and the Bat family, so much closer and happier than our families ever were….” 

Those hawk-like eyes sear out of the darkness, and Rick is frozen by the probing gaze. “And now, here’s you. The man who first showed me the light. The most coldly analytical sonofabitch I ever did meet. The man who robbed me of my sanity, my career, my family, and left me for the Bat.” 

No human smile could be that wide. 

“The perfect Criminal.” 

Quicker than a heartbeat the ghoul lunges for him, and all Rick sees is green and white and red, that awful red smile as he’s pushed against the railing, then over it -- 

  


When he wakes, he’s lying on a king-sized bed in some sort of dilapidated set for an old television show. The interior of this suburban house is located in an old warehouse that reeks of rusted metal and mold. He must be in the set for the master bedroom. He sees a green and white and red man sitting perched on a dresser. He's dressed in a very smart purple three-piece suit. He's giggling to himself as he plays with a deck of cards. But whispering in his own ear is another green and white and red man, also in purple suit, the one from...from before. The Comedian. He whispers to him, whispers to him of the Bat, always the Bat, the Bat is all there is, the Bat, the Bat…. 

For just a moment Rick Sanchez tries to hold on. _Rick Rick Jesus Christ man, it's you it's Walsh it's the compound it's it's_

But there are too many other versions of himself yelling all sorts of contrasting and unrelated things, all different, all similar, all -- 

Only one voice is clear, and he lets it take over. It's an anchor in the storm.

The Batman. The Batman is the only consistent blight in this world, the only one who can truly save or destroy us, at his whim. 

He's trying -- he's trying so hard to hold on --

Through his wavering gaze he sees Diane.

Her smile's too large and then the Batman overtakes her, and she's gone.

The Clown approaches at the Comedian’s summons with a hand mirror. He dangles it in front of the stunned man’s face, his laughter gurgling out from the back of his throat. 

There looking back at him in the mirror is the same green and white and red and something's wrong, because it's the other two staring back at him, the same green and white and red... 

His moan of despair as he realizes disappears in an instant as it turns to laughter instead, dark and hearty.

The Criminal sits with his two brothers and plans and schemes and leads the crusade against the Dark Knight. 

And the Comedian watches in deep satisfaction. 

Two empty broken vessels filled with his beautiful, passionate hatred for the Bat, the shape that takes up the place of a heart inside him. 

Yes, his Clown and his Criminal are free to live and breathe and reign down all the terror they can, but still. Still. 

He had hoped that by their presence his own devotion to the Bat and only the Bat would be complete. 

Yet here they all are, all focused on the Bat, but he, the Comedian, is the only one who remembers Her. 

He remembers Her, and he hates that even more than the Bat.

  


Jeannie finishes putting the dishes away. The wind picks up and more snow dots the windows. She can’t see the Jeep outside, or her benefactor standing against it staring at that frosted over window. 

She leans against the counter and sighs. 

She rubs the ring on her finger. 

__

__

She will never take it off. 

Jackie doesn’t know much about his -- no, _their_ , Jackie goes by _their_ now -- father. They believe that Jack Walsh was a lab assistant privy to some sensitive government information, and he has to lie low until it’s one day safe again to join them. 

Jeannie’s done the best she can by Jackie, Jackie who just turned twelve two days ago. Jeannie threw a big birthday party with the kids from Jackie’s class, but that night it was just the two of them. They huddled under a blanket on the couch and had a Marx Brothers marathon with the DVD boxset she got them for a present. 

_Our kiddo definitely shares our sense of humor_ , she thinks as Jackie hiccups with laughter as Chico kicks Harpo. 

It’s after _Day at the Races_ that Jackie quietly tells her that lately Jackie hasn’t really felt like a he, never really has. Maybe...maybe they’re a she? 

But they don’t know yet for sure, so Jackie asks if Jeannie can call them they instead of he, or she, until they figure it out. 

Jeannie’s never known too much about the words _trans_ and _non-binary_ , never really heard much about that world growing up. For now she enfolds her child in a warm embrace and says there’s no rush and Jackie can decide on their own time. She kisses their temple and Jackie buries their head in her chest. Jackie with the chestnut curls of their father, and Jeannie’s own blue eyes. 

The next day Jeannie will check out several books on the subject at the Badger Public Library, where she works as a clerk. 

Now Jackie has gone to bed. Jeannie puts away the rest of the birthday cake, which only has a couple slices left now. 

Chocolate with vanilla icing and peanut butter filling. Jackie’s favorite. 

The favorite of Jackie’s father, too. 

Jeannie hasn’t given up hoping yet. She doesn’t think she ever will. 

She refused to believe it when Bruce Wayne visited her but a week after she settled into Badger and told her in kind tones that Jack had gone missing. There was something off about his eyes when he told her. This wasn’t the whole story. 

Somewhere out there, her Jack is still around. And her Jack -- _her_ Jack -- will get better. 

He has to. 

As long as she breathes and believes, he has to. 

Jeannie turns off the kitchen light and goes to bed. 

Bruce gets back in his Jeep and drives away. 


End file.
